


Gratitude

by 100demons



Category: Gangsta. (Manga)
Genre: Developing Friendships, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 13:01:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5457395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/100demons/pseuds/100demons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Worick and Nicolas are late for dinner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gratitude

**Author's Note:**

  * For [junko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/junko/gifts).



It was supposed to be a quick, easy job. Cash for looking pretty and standing around, as Worick called it, with Nicolas glowering from the top of the armored truck like an overgrown bat, and Worick lounging carelessly by the delivery entrance of the jeweler, hand on the holster of his gun.

“We’ll be back before dinner,” Worick had grinned, giving her a careless backwards wave as he took the stairs down. Nicolas had rolled his eyes and followed him out the door quietly, without a farewell.

Alex checked the ticking clock from her seat, white hands clenched in her lap. The hour hand moved, slowly and inexorably, past the 7.

Next to the phone, the taped list of numbers fluttered briefly in the evening breeze filtering through the open windows. The sunlight had long faded away into the cool dusk of night, the scattered light of the streetlamps outside too faint to illuminate Worick’s thin, elegant hand. No matter; Alex had long memorized the list this past evening, tracing the smooth curve of the letters with the tip of her own finger as if willing the hand that had written it to suddenly appear, along with its grinning owner.

CALL IN CASE OF EMERGENCY

FOR MEDICAL ASSISTANCE: NINA 013-782-30800 (IF UNAVAILABLE, TRY DR. THEO’S CLINIC AT 012-782-31079)  
LAW ENFORCEMENT: DT. CHAD ADKINS 015-780-36549 (DO NOT CALL 112!!)  
IF EVERYTHING GOES TO SHIT: CALL 879-994-57910, ASK FOR MR. MUNROE, TELL HIM THAT WALLACE SENT YOU

Alex’s eyes flitted over to the clock one last time, its darkened face placidly ticking on. 7:45. “ _Damn_ ,” she swore and scrambled to her feet, heading towards the phone.

The plastic handle of the phone was cool and heavy in her sweaty hand, the smooth surface sticking to the skin of her palm. She raised it to the curve of her ear, listening to the unbroken dial tone. Her finger hovered over the rotary dial.

A sharp _crack!_ rang in the air, the sound of a car door slammed suddenly. A coughing engine roared to life, then sped off, leaving a trail of gasoline tinged smoke to drift up through the open window overlooking the street just a few seconds later.

Alex dropped the phone.

She leaned out over the windowsill as far she could go, willing her eyes to see in the dark of the night. Below her, lit by the rippling half-moon radiance of the streetlights, Alex caught sight of two heads, one dark and one light.

Relief swept through her like the crash of an ocean wave, and she staggered against the window. “Nic-- Nicolas, W- _Worick_ ,” she called out, her voice weak and shaking. “ _Nic_.”

There was a pause and then Worick lifted his head, bloody and bruised and yet _alive_. Nicolas turned his head up just a half-second later, in echo, and his pale white face cut through the darkness like a silver dagger flashing in the night.

Nicolas raised one wet hand (with blood, Alex slowly realized, underneath the overwhelming rush of emotion flooding through her), and waved hello.

 

* * *

 

Worick lay sprawled on the couch, his lovely suit jacket and white buttoned shirt torn to shreds and covered in half-dried blood. Alex hovered over him with a pair of scissors and a steaming damp towel.

“Usually I go for dinner and a picture first,” Worick grinned up at her sloppily, the edge of his mouth sharp with pain.

“Nicolas is in the kitchen,” Alex informed him as she cut carefully through his sleeve, wiping the drying blood on his skin with the towel. “Now hush and don’t move, or I’ll slice right through you.”

“Doubt it’ll make a difference,” Worick mumbled, but quietened anyway. Every light in the flat was on, chasing the shadows away and gilding his yellow hair with a hazy golden halo. It even managed to soften the harsh lines and scars on his body, though he still looked terribly pale and sick underneath his tan.

“This one on your ribs is stitched,” Alex murmured as she tugged away the last strip of stained shirt off of Worick’s body. “Did you stop by the clinic?”

“Briefly,” Worick grimaced, “but only long enough for Dr. Theo to sew up my side and check that I didn’t have a brain bleed after the knock I took to my head. Nic-- we both just wanted to get home.”

Alex paused in the middle of wiping at a particularly bad scrape on his elbow. “You’re alright, though?”

There was a strained pause as the conversation fell silent. In the background, Alex could hear the steady rhythm of knives thudding against the cutting board, the sizzling noise of meat hitting the cast iron skillet. The flat quickly filled with curling warmth and the fresh-cut aroma of sage and basil.

“No,” Worick said, in a low voice. The smile was long gone from his face, and without its distracting curve, he looked simply tired and old, the hard bones of his face too sharp under his washed out skin. “But I will be.”

Alex set the scissors down and reached for Worick’s hand, lying still on the couch arm. Their fingers twined together and she squeezed gently.

“That’s all I can ask for,” she said finally.

 

* * *

 

Alex stepped into the tiny kitchen, pressing herself against the counter just as Nicolas swung around to dump the boiling pot of pasta into the sink to drain.

“Sorry,” she said, signing awkwardly as she did so.

Nicolas shrugged, tugging the oven mitts off his thick knuckled hands. _Worick?_ he signed, slowly, and Alex couldn’t help the small thrilling flutter in her heart as she recognized the painstakingly signed letters.

 _He is okay_ , Alex haltingly signed back. “I cleaned him up the best I could, gave him some ice for his head and helped him with his meds. He’s resting up,” she said at the same time, making sure to make eye contact with him. “I just wanted to drop by and see if you needed any help help here.”

Nicolas made a disbelieving snort and gestured towards the oven, one hand miming an explosion.

Alex flushed. “Blowing up a stewpot was probably not my finest moment, in retrospect.”

Nicolas turned towards the sink almost too quickly for Alex to catch the thin-lipped smile playing on his lips. He waved towards to the silverware drawer at the end of the kitchen as he turned on the tap, haphazardly signing out _table_ with one hand.

Alex stuck her tongue out at his back but went to set the table anyway, pulling out the mismatching plates and glasses from the cabinets and carrying the precarious pile over to the table in the living room. She cleared away the empty beer bottles that Nic had let pile up over the past few days and dumped out the half-full ashtray, fishing out a half-smoked cigarette to save for Worick.

The silverware they had in the flat was just as oddly matched as the rest of the dishes, but clean and well cared for. Alex set places for three, avoiding the side of the table closest to the window. The one time she’d sat there, Nicolas had walked into the room, whitened, and walked back outside. Worick had carefully avoided meeting her gaze and instead distracted her with a silly joke, before he disappeared inside his room and left her alone in the room, sitting at the strange, wrong place.

Alex didn’t sit there anymore-- no one dared to sit there, and so the three of them walked around certain jagged empty spaces in the flat, in deep silence: the fourth side of the table with the shaky leg, the faded blue blanket tucked away in the linen closet, and the occasional black woman’s top, one sleeve cut and carefully pinned up. Alex always took note but said nothing.

By the time she finished setting the table, Nicolas was well on his way over with a skillet heaped full of food, delicious curlicues of steam rising up in the air. Alex hurriedly set a pot holder down on the table and stepped back as Nicolas placed the cast iron skillet down.

“Spaghetti carbonara,” Alex said in delight. The onions looked perfectly caramelized, mixed with thick chunks of crispy bacon and still-melting grated bits of parmesan, all bound together in a delicious and creamy egg and pecorino sauce. She tapped lightly at Nicolas’s shoulder and signed, _thank you, thank you_ over and over again.

There was that quicksilver thin smile again, before Nicolas turned away, shrugging his shoulders. He headed towards the couch, where Worick was dozing lightly, covered up in a blanket that Alex had draped over him.

Alex left him to prod Worick awake as she headed over to the kitchen, grabbing three wine glasses from the kitchen and the bottle of merlot she found squirreled away in the back of the cabinet once, while digging for a glass in the middle of the night.

By the time she made it back to the table, Worick had finally been herded into sitting at his usual place, the blanket draped around his bare shoulders like a bedraggled cape. He and Nicolas were engaged in a silent half-signed war, all slight touches and eye rolls, a quiet, semi-secret language that only the two of them knew and spoke.

“Fine,” Worick said suddenly and loudly, slamming his hands down on the table. Nicolas looked smug and beckoned at Alex.

 _Glasses_ , he signed, mouthing the word as well, and Alex handed them over to him, too startled to protest. He placed two of them down on the table, conspicuously away from Worick’s plate, and placed the third by the phone, well out of Worick’s reach. He took the wine too and poured two generous glasses.

“Of all the damned cheek,” Worick muttered, looking much more alive with something to squabble over with Nicolas. “As if it would be any worse than getting my ass kicked six ways to Sunday.” He found the cigarette Alex had saved that was perched on the ashtray and immediately brightened, lighting it up with a flick of his wrist.

He drew in one long breath, his cheeks hollowing, his eyes going soft and half-lidded. “Ah,” he breathed out, tendrils of smoke and ash ghosting around his pale lips. “That’s much better.” He looked up at Alex and Nicolas, and his lips twitched in faint resemblance of a real smile for the first time since he’d stumbled home.

“Like two mother hens,” he said, just barely dodging the cuff to his head.

Alex smiled back and laughed, sliding easily into the seat that Nicolas had casually pulled out for her. She signed a discreet thank you that he acknowledged with a careless wave of his hand, settling into his own chair at the head of the table.

 _Thank you for the meal_ , Worick signed automatically, and even hurt and aching, his movements were smooth and fluid with the ease of long years. Alex echoed him carefully, then settled in as Worick bent his head and whispered Grace.

Covertly, from the corner of her eye, she watched Nicolas follow along, his lips moving in silent refrain. His eyes were open and steady as they gazed upon Worick’s fair head, his clasped hands.

Worick quickly made a crossing motion over his chest, then looked up as if nothing had happened. “Let’s eat,” he said, the corner of his blue eye crinkling as he looked over at Nicolas and Alex.

“Yes,” Alex agreed softly, then on impulse, reached out over the table, snagging Worick and Nicolas’s hands as they both reached over for the pasta.

“Thank you for coming back,” she said, one of many to come, and held their hands tightly, together.

Nicolas squeezed back and with his free hand, finger-spelled _you’re welcome_ on the blue veins of her wrist.


End file.
